KOCHI: After a brief lull, fake loan apps are back in action as a Kumbalangi native woman was threatened by operators of an online lending app that they would circulate her morphed obscene pictures if she failed to pay the money demanded by them. The woman, who had availed of a loan using the firm’s app, was threatened even after she repaid the borrowed amount.
Kochi Cyber Police have registered a case against the loan app company named Enjoy Cash from which the victim borrowed the amount. On May 22, the 33-year-old complainant took around Rs 5 lakh as a loan after downloading Enjoy Cash app for a short-term purpose. She repaid the entire amount within two days. However, the trouble started after repaying the loan amount as she received calls claiming that more amount has to be repaid. As the loan was already closed, the victim refused to pay. “Then the tone of the person changed and he started threatening the victim.
He first claimed that the victim will be defamed through social media. However, as the victim ignored the threat, the accused started verbally abusing her. He sent several abusive messages to the victim. On one occasion, the accused sent an obscene morphed picture of the victim. Later, the same picture was sent to her friends as well through WhatsApp,” a police officer said.
The victim received further threats that her morphed picture will be circulated on social media platforms and sent to all people included in the contact list of her mobile phone. Fearing defamation, the victim and family paid the demanded money. Later, the accused person again approached her for repaying interest charges and the threat continued. Following the advice of friends and family members, the victim approached the police which registered a case and started a probe into the incident.
“By downloading such bogus apps, the fraudsters get access to the phone. They can modify and delete the content in the shared storage in the smartphone. They also get access to the contact lists and other networks on the smartphone. Thus the fraudster can leak out pictures from the smartphone without the permission of the user which can be used for extorting money,” the police officer said.
According to the police, no loan should be availed from any platform which has no licence to do financial transactions in India. Similarly, whenever loan app persons start threats, the victim should report the matter to the police.
They also should remove the app from the mobile phone so that the accused person does not access any other content. Last month, Bengaluru police registered a case against 15 loan app companies which illegally accessed the mobile phone of borrowers and sent them threats to circulate their private pictures. They also took copies of the borrower’s Aadhaar card and PAN card stored in digital form on their mobile phones.
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According to the police, no loan should be availed from any platform which has no licence to do financial transactions in India
Whenever loan app persons start threats, the victim should report the matter to the police